So, What is Home?

I recently took a trip to an extremely isolated beach on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica named Punta Mona. Far from the hustle and bustle of busy,  "civilized" New York, I had time to reflect on my cultural identity and place in our giant human ecosystem. Composting toilets, no internet or phone service, hiking, sea urchin splinters, and much, much more laid down a harsh contrast to the life-style I had been living for the past four months in the U.S. This poem seemed appropriate.

Casa Uno

And tomorrow, the day I go home,

a juxtaposition will lay down

into me like two opposing sides

splitting my body in two diff-

erent colors.

Aligning the poles of a Northern New York college student

and a Central-American, Costa Rican white blonde girl

that miss of moist warmth

the climate type and of familial

warmth

soft mothers’ skin and a head on

a father’s chest. A brother whose

tactless jokes cut

others deeply but show me that there is

someone honest left in this world.

Beginning Here

After a semester of poetry class, I feel it is time. The hour has come, at precisely 2:41 AM on a friend's computer, to share my poetry. Gasps, I know. I am providing you, the reader, with poems that I wrote. I wrote these poems. I wrote them in my poetry workshop so I am proud because I worked hard at it. Read ahead.They are poems and I wrote them. Did you catch that? Here is the first one (it's the first one):


The Story of the Old Lady


 I. Me, present day
I come home tonight
and don’t know where to begin.
at home. which parts of me to put away.
and which parts of me to put ice on.

I don’t know which parts
of home to clean up
which sections to study
and which to tidy.
where to sweep
and where I should sleep.

what organs of me do I shelve?
What stomach do I place
above the hearth?
What liver, what set
of kidneys do I remove
dust off
and place on the mantle?

Where do I begin to
paraphrase the nonsense of my body?
to paraphrase the clutter
And hum of the days gone by?

II. The man, two years ago
Strewn about my home is
a spleen in the dresser.
a finger on the couch
left by the man who came
to visit a couple years back.

 his left temporal lobe and a sciatic nerve.
sit on the armrest
like remotes that no longer work.


III. The Plumber, Yesterday
I called him only
to repair my loneliness

 leaving his wrench,
a femur, and a liver
right below the sink.

 IV. Guests, Years Ago
tiny bones like spare
change lost under the loveseat
from guests that came
for dinner and cognac
during younger times

V. My Parents, 1989
ear cartilage is
left from my parents’ last
visit. their femurs and tibias
my inheritance

 through which door
am I supposed to exit
if they left through the front?

 I still remember their voices
like echoes sitting cross-
legged on my couch.

 VI. Him, 1997
Did I run through that hallway?
That secret passage
concealing the small nook
of my body he found
and kept for himself.

He was gone too soon.
and when he was
a back pain mistaken
for a heart consumed me.

 VII.
One heart I buried
back in the deep yard

dug up and chewed
by stray dogs
ages many times ago.